Now then, a few days ago, I was surfing and stumbled across Slide-Clips.com. The site does not yet have its online store plugged in, so I followed the links and eventually made a phone call that put me in touch with a very kind gentleman named Peter who just joined the site (at my suggestion) with a username of "Slide-Clips".

I mentioned Levenger's Clippies and Peter tells me that Slide Clips are not exactly the same. Levenger's are made in China, Slide Clips in Japan. So I placed an order with him that arrived yesterday.

Here's what I ordered: This is a small pack of mall plastic clips, a small pack of large plastic clips, a pack of XL metal clips, and one pack each of two sizes of magnetic clips.

This is one of each size clip. opened, closed...

...and clipped

Here are the magnet clips. The smaller ones are the same size as the large, non-magnetic clips. They appear to be the same clip with an attached magnet disc. The large magnet clips do not extend/retract like the others. You just slide the paper in and it holds.

This is one of the small slips in my fat thumb and fore-finger. The inner metal part has little tabs that extend past the plastic. These are how you get the clip open.

Just grab it and gently pull

Here is a comparison between these Slide Clips and the Levenger Clippies. They appear to be identical. Slide Clips sells metal clips in these sizes as well as the XL.

Now we get to the point: The way to create a folder like in the Flickr set, you need to take the clips apart. I found an easy way to do it. As you can see, I can take them apart.

I will detail the disassembly in another post. This is a product review. Here's the bottom line: Slide Clips are functionally identical to Levenger Clippies. Slide Clips, however, offer much more variety and are a bit less expensive.

Here are the prices Peter quoted me:

Small Plastic Clips (10 pack)

$2.19

Small Plastic Clips (30 pack)

$4.99

Small Plastic Clips (100 pack)

$14.79

Largel Plastic Clips (5 pack)

$1.99

Largel Plastic Clips (10 pack)

$3.49

Largel Plastic Clips (20 pack)

$6.49

Small Metal Clips (30 pack)

$4.98

Large Metal Clips (20 pack)

$6.69

XL Metal Clips (10 pack)

$6.09

Small Magnetic Clips (10 pack)

$6.59

Large Magnetic Clips (4 pack)

$9.89

While Levenger Clippies come in a tin with 12 large and 24 small for $16 (currently on sale for $14)

I like these. I think you will, too. You can phone or e-mail Slide-Clips until thy get their web site finished.

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Thanks, ygor! These things are so nifty! I may have to order some to be sent to my wife while she's in the States in April. I think these are better than binder clips, because there are no "wings" to have to fold down. And I like the colorful plastic over the metal. Maybe not for something "bound" like in the original post, but for what I want, the colors will help. Thanks again!

We've been using something very like this at my workplace for a few years. I think they come from Japan but they're definitely not Levenger. They're called "Mori Clips" here and come in many different colours. They're made by Carl - that's a company name not a person :) .

They're very useful and popular around the office. I guess it must be one of those things that's better known in Australia than the USA.

Jon,
the smaller clips I've used hold about 25 to 30 sheets of paper, the larger ones hold maybe 50 or so sheets. My senior execs like their reports to be clipped using them as, unlike folding clips and bulldog clips, there are no loops to catch on other clips, pages etc.

P.S. It's great to hear that Slide Clips are bringing cheaper slide on clips to the USA. Enjoy them guys!

Carl is a Japan based company. The pictures I found for Carl Mori Clips looked identical. I would guess that they all probably come from the same source.

Another interesting tidbit is a Binding Machine they make. It looks a lot like the Rollabind/Levenger Portable Punch. I guess this is where the idea came from.
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"I think the surest sign that there is intelligent life out there in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us." (Calvin and Hobbes/Bill Waterson)

Definitely not a rollabind/levenger invention but perhaps the size of a binder like this inspired the portable punches. I've seen a few mini-comb-binders over the years

A bit of googling led me to this very interesting document about the history of binding https://www.ideals.uiuc.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/5645/libra...
It gives the following dates
- the first wire binding patent in the USA was issued to German inventor in 1924
- But the first true spiral binding was patented in 1934 by Frenchman Samuel Groener.
- In 1934 the first Comb-type plastic binding was also patented but it didn't take off as a product until plastics were more available after WW2.
So wire and comb binding weren't invented that far before Atoma developed the disc system, in time to start selling disc-bound notebooks in 1948

Wandering back on topic - yes, I wouldn't be surprised if the nori clips were exactly the same as the slide clips.
As Australia's a very small market (only 22 million people) it's rarer to see a company repackage or rename goods, eg if Levenger was an Australian company importing clippies then the clippies would be more likely to be in their Chinese packaging with a Levenger sticker on the outside. And it would be unlikely that they would be engraved with Levenger's name.

Peter sent me an e-mail to tell me the prices I posted were a bit outdated. He was kind enough to include the current prices which I put in place above.

If you have been to the web site, there is one product I did not talk about here called "Pinch Clips"
Peter sent me a sample pack. I will get a review up in a day or three as schedule permits.
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"I think the surest sign that there is intelligent life out there in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us." (Calvin and Hobbes/Bill Waterson)

Well, now that Levenger has continued their trend of discontinuing all the products that I love (Clippies are now gone too!) I just found this posting about similar clips, called Slide Clips and Mori Clips. However I am not finding these around either. Does anyone know where I can get some?

Enjoy.
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"I think the surest sign that there is intelligent life out there in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us." (Calvin and Hobbes/Bill Waterson) ***

Slide-Clips.com is the same as the second link you posted, and while they show the slide-clips you can't purchase any there - their Purchase page only shows how to purchase Their gloves and Ready-Heat products. Their international distributors include none in the US and the rest are distributors who only take really large orders.

See Katrina's comments in this thread. She lives in Australia.
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"I think the surest sign that there is intelligent life out there in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us." (Calvin and Hobbes/Bill Waterson) ***

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